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Wow, it's been nearly two years since my last post! So much for posting those SysCheck logs "ASAP", heh...

Anyhow, I did finally get CFG Loader working great back then, and I've really enjoyed having all my Wii games in one place. However, I never did get around to truly updating my Wii - it's firmware is still 3.2U, so I'm missing some features and some Homebrew (such as Save Game Manager) does not work.

So, first thing I need to do is update my Wii.

- I'm guessing I should update to 4.1U, but how? Via "System Update" in the system menu...?

- I got a Wii U recently. Is it safe to transfer my purchased Virtual Console games and save data to it, even though I've hacked my Wii? Could I make a NAND backup, transfer, and then restore the NAND backup to have the VC games on both systems?

Second, I've got a friend who wants me to help him hack his Wii, too. Around a year ago, I started the process, using Multi Mod Manager. Problem is, I don't remember what I installed, exactly... I do still have the files I used, though, including a NAND backup.

If someone could take a look at those, and get me back on track, I'd REALLY appreciate it! I've been reading guides here and there, but I'm not sure if they're outdated... Which is why I'm asking for help here.

Note: I'm still unable to run retail Wii discs from the Disc Channel. They work fine when launched from Gecko OS or CFG Loader, though.

Thanks for your time!

Goals:

- Get my Wii and Friend's Wii updated and working with CFG Loader & Devolution- Look into UNEEK, Triiforce, QuadForce, and DIOS MIOS (use it without replacing cMIOS?)

--- OLD STUFF BELOW ---

OLD UPDATE: I'm back, and now I just want to get my Wii able to play backups of my games via a USB drive. I've got a 320GB, I just need to format it... I'm going to follow to these instructions unless someone tells me they're outdated. A few questions:

- How much space should I leave in the FAT32 partition? It's a 320GB drive.- Is it still recommended to have a WFBS partition, or should I just go 100% FAT32?

I'm going to try getting this done later today. BTW, the only things I've done since my last post was:

Speaking of which, ever since I installed the .wad files from SMG2, I haven't been able to boot discs through the disc menu. I can only boot discs via Gecko OS now. Anyone know why that is?

Thanks much for any advice, especially regarding backing up my Wii games to a USB drive!

---

Hello again, everyone. I've been out of the Wii hacking scene for a long time, but now I've finally got some time to get back into it.

Honestly, I didn't do that much to begin with... All I did was:

- Installed the Homebrew Channel via Bannerbomb- Installed BootMii to boot2 somehow, and made two NAND backups- Updated the Wii Shop Channel files so I could access the shop without updating

That's it. My Wii is still on 3.2U. My first objectives are to:

- Block update prompts that come up when I play newer games (Preloader??)- Get my Wii (unofficially?) updated so it can play newer games, like Little King's Story and Super Mario Galaxy 2- Figure out how to extract my Super Smash Bros. Brawl Save data (I'm mostly into the Brawl modding scene right now)- Figure out how to save my games to a Hard Disc Drive so I don't have to swap discs- Decide which HDD to use with my Wii: Western Digital 320GB Essential Edition external or Western Digital 500GB internal

I'm reading through the FAQs and guides now, but any advice and/or links to relevant instructions from you all would greatly help me along. I'm still really new to this.

Thanks in advance for any help!

P.S.: I remember reading that there's some mod out there that prevents some of Brawl's modes from working properly. Seeing as Brawl and its mods are the main games I play on the Wii, please let me know if any suggested mods/hacks will affect it, and if there are workarounds.

stay on 3.2 if you're still there. you can pretty much get 3.2 to do anything that any other system menu will do. the only thing that 4.0+ can do that 3.2 can;t is loading wiiware/vc games from the system menu. it's a crappy solution to nintendos lack of internal storage and you should just use triiforce if you want to load them from sd card. less wear on your nand. use modmii or nusd to download what ever files you want to update. ie ios's and possibly the shop channel. use priiloader to block disc updates and there are a few save game extractor programs if you want to pull your ssbb saves. as far as hdd go i would recommend almost any external wd hdd. i have a wd my book essentials edition 1tb drive that i've been using since the begging of usb loading and it always works just fine. i still have it fromated to wbfs, but you can now use a fat32 drive and convert you're games to wbfs format and transfrer them over to your fat32 drive. i hope some of this info was helpful for you.

It is very helpful, thank you! Just one question - how will I know which IOS I will need to update? Is there a list somewhere that says which IOS is necessary for what games/apps/system functions/etc.?

Actually, if you know of some in-depth guides, some links to them would help even more. I'm going to set aside a day soon just for reading up on how to hack my Wii properly.

most new games are looking for ios56 so i would start there if you're looking to update ios for newer games. modmii has a function that will put together a custom guide for you after answering a few questions, how ever as i said before there is no need to update your system menu. i would advise against it for no other reason then it's not necessary to make any game play. i believe updating ios53 was necessary for a few games including nsmbw. so over all i would start with updating those 2 ios using modmii or nusd. updating your cios might also be helpful and i would suggest installing several of them. both waninkoko's and hermes versions are good and available in several flavors that you can install to different slots. use modmii to download them in wad form and install what you want with wadmanager.

Have to agree, there's not much reason to update beyond 3.2. We have SNEEK now, so there's no need for the SD card menu, which is pretty much the only new feature since 3.2. Keep your non-SM IOSes (especially the 50s) updated and you're good.

...I'm still trying to find the time to get my Wii hacked, but I never seem to have enough time. I read up on any hacks I think I'll use, but then something comes up, and by the time I have the time to use those hacks, I've forgotten what I read...

*sigh* I'm just going to start with ModMii as soon as I have time. Hopefully I won't make any mistakes... I just know I'm tired of having Super Mario Galaxy 2 sitting here, me being unable to play it. :/

Any further advice is always welcome, of course. Sorry I'm so slow at this!

...Say, could I be playing SMG2 through Gecko OS, without worrying about the disc updating my system, or having to update any IOS? I use Gecko in conjunction with Smash Stack all the time, to play the various Brawl mods... Is there a way I can run Gecko from my SD card? Launch it from the HBC, maybe...? >.>

yes, if you want you can load any games through gecko os. Get it here and run it like any other hbc app.

Priiloader also isn't very hard to install, it takes 5 minutes tops (more like 1 minute) and then you can load games from the disk channel without updating.
If you want to do that, get Priiloader 0.6 here and extract the apps folder to the root of your sd card, and then download the hacks_hash.ini (right click > save link as) and save it to the root of your sd card.
Now run the priiloader installer from the homebrew channel, install it then shut down your wii. Now turn it back on while holding reset. The priiloader menu wil come up, go to the system menu hacks and enable the ones you want. Save the settings and thats it, priiloader is all set up.

Finally got a day to figure this all out, and it's already almost over... :/

Anyhow, I installed Priiloader, and I have that hacks_hash.ini on the root of my SD card, but I have a couple of problems... First of all, I updated the Homebrew Channel when it prompted me to (from X.03 to X.06, I think - can't remember what number X was). Next, I enabled the following Priiloader hacks:

I added three other apps to my Apps folder, "sysCheck", "Gecko OS 1.9.3.1", and "Savegame Manager 1.0". SysCheck and Gecko OS work, but Savegame Manager gives the following error:

"[ - ] ERROR: Could not load custom IOS! (ret = -4100)

Press any button to restart..."

So that's the first, less annoying problem. The second one is that when I try to load Super Mario Galaxy 2 (a real copy), I just get a black screen, and I have to shut down the Wii.

I'm guessing I need to update some things, but what? And how? I've been reading the forums all day, looking for answers, but I've only gotten this far... Here's the report sysCheck generated, maybe that can help:

Last of all, just a few things I don't completely understand at the moment:

- Now that I've installed Priiloader, I can delete the installer, right?
- Priiloader hacks work without having to boot through Priiloader - by holding RESET on boot - right?
- Is that hacks_hash.ini outdated?
- Is hacks_hash.ini the same as hacks.ini?
- How do you download new apps via the Homebrew Channel? I don't see the option...
- How would I install Gecko OS as a channel? I don't know much about WADs yet.
- I'd like to go ahead and get my 320GB hard drive set up to play games via a USB loader...

Thanks very much in advance to anyone who can help me with either of my problems or answer some of my questions.

- Now that I've installed Priiloader, I can delete the installer, right?
Yep.

- Priiloader hacks work without having to boot through Priiloader - by holding RESET on boot - right?
The hacks are installed onto the system menu itself.
Yes, you launch priiloader by holding reset on boot.

- Is that hacks_hash.ini outdated?
- Is hacks_hash.ini the same as hacks.ini?
Don't know those 2.
But, you have to get the correct hacks.ini for your system menu.

- How do you download new apps via the Homebrew Channel? I don't see the option...
Download via internet, place it in the apps folder on the sd/usb
Alternatively you could download homebrew browser and use it to download apps via wii.

- How would I install Gecko OS as a channel? I don't know much about WADs yet.
Download a gecko os forwarder, it should a .wad file.
Install it using wad manager (google if you need help)

- I'd like to go ahead and get my 320GB hard drive set up to play games via a USB loader...
It's not hard.
My 12 year old brother set up my wii for me.
Google 'completesoftmodguide'.
Read.
Have fun.

Thanks, megafanzero. I was getting the Homebrew Channel mixed up with the Homebrew Browser.

I'll Google for more info on a "Gecko OS forwarder" (although I'd appreciate some more advice on that) and for instructions on how to set up the hard drive.

Then I just need to find out which hacks.ini is the right one for 3.2U... And if "hacks_hash.ini" is the same as "hacks.ini". Oh, and find out what the following two Priiloader hacks are for:

Remove diag disc check
Force Disc Games to run under IOS249

This would all probably be easier if I would just update to 4.X, but I'd rather not until I'm sure of what I'd gain and lose. From what I've read, it sounds like I wouldn't gain very much, just something about SDHC access... I only have 2GB SD cards anyway.

...

Ah, almost forgot about getting the Save Game Manager working, and getting Super Mario Galaxy 2 to run. These must involve outdated IOS... Or so I'm guessing. I need to figure out which program I need to use to update which specific IOS, and how...

As far as I can tell, hacks_hash.ini is just a different way of storing the hacks. I don't know the reasoning behind the switch, but the hacks seem to work equally well. And if needed, you can set "use classic hacks.ini" (or something) in the settings.

Remove diag check (apparently) "Allows you to boot a regular game through the recovery menu."

I don't know what it does exactly (or rather: what the advantage would be of running a game from a 'recovery menu'), so I have it turned off.

"Force Disc Games to run under IOS249" is exactly what it says it'll do. Under the hood of your wii are a bunch of IOS'es that basically control the input and output (kinda like the BIOS of your PC). A firmware upgrade is, for the most part, just a check of the installed IOS'es and an update for those that are outdated. Important in this aspect is the trucha bug. This bug in early IOS'es allowed backup discs to get around the internal security and play just like a wii game. Needless to say, nintendo fixes this bug with each update of their IOS'es.

Also, each game has a certain IOS number it will use when it loads. With this setting enabled, that is no longer true. Instead of using that number, it will use whatever ÂIOS is installed in IOS249 instead. This can be convenient if you want to use backup discs but don't want your wii running on outdated/hacked IOS'es. The disadvantage of this setting is that there isn't a single cIOS that can play all games, so it is not meant as a replacement for darkcorp.

Personally, I have this setting disabled...I use USB for loading anyway, so it doesn't matter to me whatsoever.
In your case...when looking at your syscheck, it seems like you have to start with installing something in your IOS249 slot first. you can get the installer here (or use modmii from the stickies).

Oh, and keep track of which base IOS you install. If you use an USB loader, you might want to install different base IOS'es to different slots (kinda like slot 246->base IOS 56, slot 247->base IOS 57, slot 248 -> base IOS 58).

Thanks for your reply, Wever! I'll read it carefully tomorrow - got to call it quits for today. My goal is to get a USB loader setup like yours... Do you use USB Loader GX?

Anyhow, I did make one discovery: I tried running Super Mario Galaxy 2 via Gecko OS, and it let me install 15 files from "IOS56-64-v5405" (that last 0 might be an 8). Afterwards, SMG2 ran perfectly if booted through Gecko OS, although it won't boot at all through the Disc Channel... Hmm.

I'll post a new sysCheck report tomorrow, since I updated some IOS... Will it always be that easy? Just load a new game through Gecko OS, then install necessary IOS from disc? If so, awesome.